Filed under – DUH! Of course it’s a right you idiots. You know, I would imagine if the Constitution was required reading in this country people might not have to go all the way to the Supreme Court to figure this out. I mean really, I knew it in elementary school the first time they went over it with me.

The Supreme Court ruled for the first time Monday that the Second Amendment provides all Americans a fundamental right to bear arms, a long-sought victory for gun rights advocates who have chafed at federal, state and local efforts to restrict gun ownership.

The court was considering a restrictive handgun law in Chicago and one of its suburbs that was similar to the District law that it ruled against in 2008. The 5 to 4 decision does not strike any other gun control measures currently in place, but it provides a legal basis for challenges across the country where gun owners think that government has been too restrictive.

“It is clear that the Framers . . . counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the conservatives on the court.

It wasn’t supposed to happen in England, with all its very strict gun control laws. And yet last week Derrick Bird shot and killed 12 people and wounded 11 others. A headline in The Times of London read: “Toughest laws in the world could not stop Cumbria tragedy.”

Multiple victim public shootings were assumed to be an American thing for it is here the guns are, right? No, not at all. Contrary to public perception, Western Europe, where most countries have much tougher gun laws, has experienced many of the worst multiple victim public shootings. Particularly telling, all the multiple victim public shootings in Europe occurred where guns are banned. So it is in the United States, too — all the multiple victim public shootings (where more than three people have been killed) have taken place where civilians are not allowed to have a gun.

Look at recent history. Where have the worst K-12 school shootings occurred? It has not been in the U.S. but Europe. The very worst one occurred in a high school in Erfurt, Germany in 2002, where 18 were killed. The second worst took place in Dunblane, Scotland in 1996, where 16 kindergarteners and their teacher were shot. The third worst high school attack, with 15 murdered, happened in Winnenden, Germany. The fourth worst shooting was in the U.S. — Columbine High School in 1999, leaving 13 killed. The fifth worst school related murder spree, with 11 murdered, occurred in Emsdetten, Germany.

When Obama says “disclose,” what he really means is “disclose gun group membership lists.”

Not surprisingly, these efforts to shut down free speech don’t apply to Obama allies, like Democratic-leaning labor unions. They only apply to groups which are not reliable Obama allies, like Gun Owners of America.

But, for those groups whose free speech is targeted for Obama’s wrath under this bill, the consequences are severe:

* Under Title II of the bill, GOA (and other groups, as well as many bloggers) who merely mention public officials within 60 days of an election could be required to file onerous disclosures — potentially including their membership lists.

* Also under Title II, GOA could be required to spend as much as half of the time of a 30-second ad on government-written disclosures.

* In addition, Sections 201 through 203 would potentially put the government’s snooping eyes on any American who voices a political opinion, despite the fact that the Supreme Court, in Buckley v. Valeo, declared that Americans have a right to voice their opinion to an unlimited extent, if unconnected with a political campaign.

Here’s an idea: If Obama is so irritated at the Supreme Court’s defense of political free speech by groups like GOA, why doesn’t he apply his sleazy new rules to his political allies, as well?

ACTION: Please urge your congressman to vote against the anti-gun HR 5175. This bill has moved out of committee and has now been placed on the House calendar.

The increase in sales continued well beyond November 2008. From November 2008 to October 2009, almost 2.5 million more people bought guns in the 12 months after the election than in the preceding 12 months. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, doesn’t tell us how many guns each person bought just the number of people who bought them. Most likely though, gun sales rose by more than the number of people who purchased them.

At the same time gun sales were soaring, there was an unusually large drop in murder rates. The 7.4 percent drop in the murder rate was the largest drop in murder rates since the 1999. For those who don’t remember, 1999, when President Bill Clinton and Columbine occurred, was another time when gun sales soared. With people such as Elena Kagan serving as Mr. Clinton’s deputy domestic policy adviser were pushing hard for more gun control, Americans were worried that more gun bans were coming. And in response gun sales soared.

Just as higher arrest and conviction rates, longer prison sentences, or the more frequent use of the death penalty reduce crime, so does letting victims defend themselves with guns. More certain or greater penalties make it more risky for criminals to commit crime. Victims who can defend themselves can also make committing crime more dangerous and deter criminals.

Americans living in the District of Columbia and Chicago have seen this phenomenon themselves. After the ban went into effect in both cities, murder rates rose dramatically. After the Supreme Court threw out DC’s ban and gunlock laws in 2008, the District’s murder rates plunged by 25 percent in 2009. Indeed, my research in the just released third edition of More Guns, Less Crime shows that every place in the world that we have crime data for has seen murder rates climb when guns were banned.

I guess that’s their argument. The problem here is that this sh!t has gone on for so long that it is almost accepted that the government has the right to do whatever they want to anyone, and regulate anything that moves. Clinton once famously remarked in an overseas trip (proudly, I’m sad to say) that the United States taxed or regulated anything that moved and most things that didn’t.

The federal government is arguing in a gun-rights case pending in federal court in Montana that state plans to exempt in-state guns from various federal requirements themselves make the laws void, because the growing movement certainly would impact “interstate commerce.”

The government continues to argue to the court that the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution should be the guiding rule for the coming decision. The argument plays down the significance of both the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the 10th Amendment provision that reserves to states all prerogatives not specifically granted the federal government in the Constitution.

WND has reported both on the lawsuit filed by Montana interests seeking affirmation of the 2009 Montana Firearms Freedom Act as well as the growing movement that has seen six other states, Wyoming, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, Tennessee and Arizona, follow with similar laws.

The movement worries the federal government. In a brief filed this week in support of government demands that the case be dismissed, posted on the website for the Firearms Freedom Act, attorneys wrote, “Because an illicit market for firearms exists nationwide, a ‘gaping hole’ in federal firearm regulation would persist if firearms made and sold in Montana were exempted from compliance.”

More power to ’em. All those weapons and not a single person was shot and killed. It almost makes one believe that the right to keep and bear arms should be in the Constitution or something. And maybe even believe that guns in the hands of law abiding citizens are only a threat to those who would deprive others of their right (not to vacation, though – sorry EU) to life, liberty, and property. Nah, couldn’t be. If bearing arms was a fundamental right surely it would be in the Constitution…. oh, wait…

ARLINGTON, Va. – Carrying loaded pistols and unloaded rifles, dozens of gun-rights activists got as close as they could Monday to the nation’s capital while still bearing arms and delivered what they said was a simple message: Don’t tread on me.

Hundreds of like-minded but unarmed counterparts carried out a separate rally in the nation’s capital.

The gun-carrying protesters in Virginia rallied on national park land, which is legal thanks to a new law signed by President Barack Obama that allows guns in national parks. Organizers said it’s the first armed rally in a national park since the law passed.

The District of Columbia’s strict gun laws, however, generally make it illegal to carry a handgun, so rally participants there were unarmed.

Sometimes I think not. I mean seriously, if they ever solve the issue of having the government finally read the 2nd Amendment, what would they do? Get off the gravy train and call it all off? Nope. They benefit from keeping things going perpetually.

Some gun owners, saying that the National Rifle Association isn’t battling hard enough for their rights, are taking the fight into their own hands.

The 4.3 million-member NRA, one of the most powerful and well-funded lobbying groups in Washington, has for 35 years dominated the push to expand gun rights.

But its strategies aren’t aggressive or imaginative enough for some gun owners who want to openly carry holstered pistols in public places, or to exploit loopholes in state gun laws to purchase semi-automatic rifles.

They are coming together in smaller, loosely organized groups that recruit on the Internet and find inspiration from the tea party movement.

About as likely as Keith Olbermann saying something nice about Sarah Palin, right?

Well, on Wednesday, MSNBC.com actually published a piece [1] with the following shocking headline:

Shhh. Wait. It got better (h/t CNSNews [2] via Weasel Zippers [3]):

Americans overall are far less likely to be killed with a firearm than they were when it was much more difficult to obtain a concealed-weapons permit, according to statistics collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control. [4] But researchers have not been able to establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

In the 1980s and ’90s, as the concealed-carry movement gained steam, Americans were killed by others with guns at the rate of about 5.66 per 100,000 population. In this decade, the rate has fallen to just over 4.07 per 100,000, a 28 percent drop. The decline follows a fivefold increase in the number of “shall-issue” and unrestricted concealed-carry states from 1986 to 2006.

The highest gun homicide rate is in Washington, D.C., which has had the nation’s strictest gun-control laws for years and bans concealed carry: 20.50 deaths per 100,000 population, five times the general rate. The lowest rate, 1.12, is in Utah, which has such a liberal concealed weapons policy that most American adults can get a permit to carry a gun in Utah without even visiting the state.

The decline in gun homicides also comes as U.S. firearm sales are skyrocketing, according to federal background checks that are required for most gun sales. After holding stable at 8.5 to 9 million checks from 1999 to 2005, the FBI reported a surge to 10 million in 2006, 11 million in 2007, nearly 13 million in 2008 and more than 14 million last year, a 55 percent increase in just four years.

It must be noted that all of these vital statistics appeared on the third and final page of this article where likely few readers would see them.

Regardless, the data were supported by charts specifically showing how gun-related deaths have declined as the number of states opting for “shall issue” permits increased:

CNSNews’s Joe Schoffstall elaborated [5]:

In this decade, the gun-homicide rate has fallen to 4.07 per 100,000, which equates to a 28 percent reduction in homicides with the use of firearms. This decline in homicides follows a five-fold increase in a “shall-issue” (requirement of a permit to carry a concealed handgun, but where the granting of the permit is subject only to meeting certain criteria laid out in the law) and unrestricted concealed-carry laws in states from 1986 to 2006, reported MSNBC.com.

According to federal background checks conducted on the sale of most firearms, the decline in homicides comes as U.S. firearm sales are skyrocketing. […]

The nation’s highest gun homicide rates are in Washington, D.C., with 20.50 deaths per 100,000 people, five times the general rate. Yet the District of Columbia has the strictest gun-control laws in the nation. The lowest rate of gun-related homicides is in Utah: 1.12 deaths per 100,000 people. Utah’s gun-control policy [6] is very unrestricted.

One might ask why a law was needed to give their people a right guaranteed by the Constitution, but at least they are doing it.

PHOENIX — State senators voted Tuesday to let anyone who can legally have a weapon carry it beneath a jacket, in a purse or otherwise hidden.

SB 1108 would eliminate all the penalties that now exist when someone has a concealed weapon without first getting a state permit. That permit requires the holder to attend a training class, which covers everything from the laws on when people can use deadly physical force to proving the person actually can handle the weapon.

It also requires a background check.

The bill requires a final roll-call vote before going to the House.

Current state law allows virtually all adults to have loaded weapons as long as they are visible.

Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said that law is of little help to many. He said that especially includes women who may want a gun to protect themselves but don’t particularly want to strap a holster over a dress.

Pearce also said that having more citizens who are armed would deter criminals, who don’t obey gun laws in the first place. He said they might think twice before attacking people who otherwise appear defenseless.

We’ll have to start seeing pushback like this all over the country on a variety of issues or the government will become a true threat to our traditional Constitutional Republic. If we want to preserve the ways of life that made us great, we have to.

A fifth state – South Dakota – has decided that guns made, sold and used within its borders no longer are subject to the whims of the federal government through its rule-making arm in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and two supporters of the growing groundswell say they hope Washington soon will be taking note.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds has signed into law his state’s version of a Firearms Freedom Act that first was launched in Montana. It already is law there, in Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming, which took the unusual step of specifying criminal penalties – including both fines and jail time – for federal agents attempting to enforce a federal law on a “personal firearm” in the Cowboy State.

According to a report in the Dakota Voice, the new South Dakota law addresses the “rights of states which have been carelessly trampled by the federal government for decades.”

“As the federal government has radically overstepped is constitutional limitations in the past year or so, an explosion of states have begun re-asserting their rights not only with regard to firearms, but also in shielding themselves against government health care, cap and trade global warming taxes, and more,” the report said.

South Dakota’s law specifically notes “any firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in South Dakota and that remains within the borders of South Dakota is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.”

Utah has become the third state to adopt a law exempting guns and ammunition made, sold and used in the state from massive federal regulations under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and supporters say about 30 more states have some sort of plan for their own exemptions in the works.

Anyone with sense knows this anyway. I find it disturbing that a very plainly written bit of the Bill of Rights need ‘interpreting’ at all. Not much point in having a Bill of Rights if you just ‘interpret’ it however you want.

On a related note – quote of the day – Alan Gura arguing for 2nd Amendment in Supreme Court: Justice Sotomayor, States may have grown accustomed to violating the rights of American citizens, but that does not bootstrap those violations into something that is constitutional.

KA-BLAM!!

In the 2008 “Heller” decision, the Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban and gunlock requirements. Unsurprisingly, gun control advocates predicted disaster. They were wrong. What actually happened in our nation’s capital after the Heller decision ought to be remembered tomorrow as the Supreme Court hears a similar constitutional challenge to the Chicago handgun ban.

When the Heller case was decided, Washington’s Mayor Adrian Fenty warned: “More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence.” Knowing that Chicago’s gun laws would soon face a similar legal challenge, Mayor Richard Daley was particularly vocal. The day that the Heller decision was handed down, Daley said that he and other mayors across the country were “outraged” by the decision and he predicted more deaths along with Wild West-style shootouts. Daley warned that people “are going to take a gun and they are going to end their lives in a family dispute.”

But Armageddon never arrived. Quite the contrary, murders in Washington plummeted by an astounding 25 percent in 2009, dropping from 186 murders in 2008 to 140. That translates to a murder rate that is now down to 23.5 per 100,000 people, Washinton’s lowest since 1967. While other cities have also fared well over the last year, D.C.’s drop was several times greater than that for other similar sized cities. According to preliminary estimates by the FBI, nationwide murders fell by a relatively more modest 10 percent last year and by about 8 percent in other similarly sized cities of half a million to one million people (D.C.’s population count is at about 590,000).

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has followed how crime rates change after gun bans have been imposed. Around the world, whenever guns are banned, murder rates rise.

Washington’s murder rate soared after its handgun ban went into effect in early 1977 (there is only one year while the ban was in effect that the murder rate fell below the1976 number and that happened many years later — in 1985). Its murder rate also rose relative to other cities. Washington’s murder rate rose from 12 percent above the average for the 50 most populous cities in 1976 to 35 percent above the average in 1986.

Chicago fared no better after the 7th Circuit Appeals court upheld its ban on new handguns in late 1982. Over the next 19 years following the ban, there were only three years where the murder rate was as low as in 1982. As shown in the forthcoming third edition of my book “More Guns, Less Crime,” before the ban, Chicago’s murder rate was falling relative to the 9 other largest cities, the 50 largest cities, the five counties that boarder Cook county, as well as the U.S. as a whole. After the ban Chicago’s murder rate rose relative to all these other places. For example, comparing murder rates among the 50 most populous cities, the murder rate went from equaling the average for the other cities in 1982, to exceeding their average murder rate by 32 percent in 1992, to exceeding their average by 68 percent in 2002.

The failures of gun bans in the U.S. are frequently blamed on lax gun restrictions in other states. But the experiences of other countries, even in island nations that have banned handguns and in countries where borders are easy to monitor, do not support this claim. For when handgun bans were enacted in Ireland and Jamaica, in 1972 and 1974, respectively, murder rates doubled over the following decade. And take the more recent example in England and Wales, where handguns were banned in 1997: deaths and injuries from gun crime more than doubled over the next seven years.

The benefits of guns are not lost on Chicago’s politicians. Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass wrote in 2008 that there are two types of people who are allowed to have handguns in Chicago: “The criminals. And the politicians.” The politicians use their pull to either “become deputized peace officers so they can carry” or “often go around surrounded by armed bodyguards on the city payroll.” It is just that the politicians don’t want to extend those benefits to the citizens they are supposed to represent. This includes Mr. Otis McDonald, the lead plaintiff in the Chicago case. He is a 76-year-old black man living in a neighborhood infested with drug dealers. McDonald’s home has been burglarized three times, and he would like to possess a handgun that he can easily access next to his bed.

Nice. What can you say about this kind of lunacy. Threats were probably not the right way to go to resolve the issue, but at least the authorities know they pissed some people off.

KING, N.C. — Residents in King were fumed over the weekend after a state of emergency declaration restricted the sale of alcohol and the carrying of firearms in vehicles.

King Police Chief Paula May said she’s received hundreds of threats related to the restrictions, which banned driving from 12 a.m. Sunday to 5 a.m.

The state of emergency for King was declared by members of the City Council after Stokes County authorities also declared a state of emergency.

Under North Carolina law, May said, when a state of emergency is put into place that includes a ban on driving, the sale of alcohol and carrying of firearms in vehicles is also banned.

“I think there’s been some misinterpretation that I personally have declared martial law and taken away people’s right to bear arms and that’s erroneous,” May told WXII reporter Jermont Terry. “By law statue 14-288.7 automatically went into effect. And that law which goes into effect when there’s a state of emergency prohibits the transportation, purchase sale and possession of fire arms other than on ones own premises.”

What maroons, as Bugs Bunny used to say. Making a law will have absolutely no effect on a person bent on destruction and breaking laws.

I gave thought to writing more, but the idiocy (and ultimately the purpose of control) behind the gun control thing is just blatantly obvious. In the case of some, they are just emotionally and illogically reacting to a particular situation. Some are just not too interested in putting forth the effort to think independently. But then there are some that would use it as a method of control. They use the others who don’t think rationally for their own purposes. Anyway, it’s all obvious.

Lawmakers in firearm-friendly Texas are embroiled in a debate over how to make the state Capitol safer: get rid of guns or encourage even more.

The discussion comes after a man last month fired several shots on the steps of the towering Capitol in Austin. State troopers tackled him and no one was wounded, but the incident spotlighted a predicament for lawmakers in a state where carrying handguns is not only legal but largely cherished.

Lawmakers, some of whom regularly show up armed to the job, have to sort through an array of safety options. They range from prohibiting guns in the Capitol, making everyone who steps into the building go through a metal detector, to exempting those who have a license to carry a concealed weapon. Or lawmakers could stick with current safety procedures, which permit unfettered access to all areas of the Capitol when the legislature isn’t in session, effectively allowing access to people carrying guns.

Gov. Rick Perry, a concealed-weapon licensee himself who was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in his bid for re-election, is of the view that lawful gun-carrying Texans deter criminals from drawing their weapons for fear of being outnumbered. “The last thing I want is for the Texas Capitol to turn into DFW Airport,” he said at a recent news conference.

But others question whether civilians’ right to carry firearms should extend to the seat of state government, which is visited daily by thousands of tourists and citizens with legislative business, some of whom who aren’t always happy about lawmakers’ decisions.

What the heck?? I can see calling a state of emergency to get public assistance rolling, get the salt trucks out, start shoveling, etc, but do we really need to suspend the Constitution as well? Why the need to ban alcohol and firearms? Are they saying that because of three feet of snow their citizenry will rise up in rebellion, or for some reason go on drunken shooting rampages? Really? That may be a bit much.

KING, N.C. — Authorities lifted a curfew and alcohol restrictions in King on Sunday, but said a state of emergency declaration remained in effect until Monday.

Authorities said the state of emergency declaration would continue until Monday 9 a.m., barring any unforeseen circumstances or severe changes.

Effective Sunday afternoon, alcohol restrictions and a curfew were lifted. All other remaining restrictions would continue until Monday, said Paula May, King police chief.

Other restrictions include a ban on the sale or purchase of any type of firearm, ammunition, explosive or any possession of such items off a person’s own premises.